The DISH
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Vol. 8 Issue 10…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…March
11, 2005
Negro Hero
By Gwendolyn Brooks
I had to kick their law into their teeth
In order to save them.
However I have heard that sometimes you have to deal
Devilishly with drowning men
In order to swim them to shore.
Or they will haul themselves and you
To the trash and the fish beneath.
(When I think of this,
I do not worry about a few chipped teeth.)
It is good I gave glory,
It is good I put gold on their name.
Or there would have been spikes in the afterward hands.
But let us speak only of my success
And the pictures in the Caucasian dailies
As well as the Negro weeklies.
For I am a gem.
(They are not concerned that it was hardly
The Enemy my fight was against.
But them.)
It was a tall time.
And of course my blood was
Boiling about in my head
And straining and howling and singing me on
Of course I was rolled on wheels
Of my boy itch to get at the gun
Of course all the delicate rehearsal shots
Of my childhood massed in mirage before me.
Of course I was child
And my first swallow of the liquor of battle bleeding
Black air dying and demon noise made me wild.
It was kinder than that, though,
And I showed like a banner my kindness.
I loved. And a man
will guard when he loves.
Their white-gowned democracy was my fair lady.
With her knife lying cold, straight,
In the softness of her sweet-flowing sleeve.
But for the sake of the dear smiling mouth
And the stuttered promise I toyed with my life.
I threw back!-- I would not remember entirely the knife.
Still– am I good enough to die for them?
Is my blood bright enough to be spilled?
Was my constant back-questions– are they clear on this?
Or do I intrude even now?
Am I clean enough to kill for them?
Do they wish me to kill for them?
Or is my place while death licks his lips
And strides to them in the galley still?
(In a southern city a white man said
Indeed, I’d rather be dead;
Indeed, I’d rather be shot in the head
Or ridden to waste on the back of a flood
Than saved by the drop of a black man’s blood.)
Naturally, the important thing is, I helped to save them,
Them and a part of their democracy.
Even if I had to kick their law into their teeth
In order to do that for them.
And I am feeling well and settled in myself
Because I believe it was a good job,
Despite this possible horror:
That they might prefer the preservation of their law
In all its sick dignity and their knives
To the continuation of their creed and their lives.
The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro was
clearly unhappy at his previous school. When things looked their darkest, he
turned towards home for reassurance and assistance. There, he began anew with
strength and love to nurture him through this most trying period. Asked to
elaborate on his current state of affairs, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro declared,
"No place beats home!"
William Orville Douglas (1898-1980)
"As nightfall does not come at once,
neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything
remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware
of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the
darkness." (Justice William O. Douglas)
Born on October 16, 1898 in Minnesota, William O.
Douglas grew up in Yakima, Washington, where his mother moved the family
following his father's death (1904). While stricken with polio at age three,
Douglas escaped permanent paralysis. To strengthen his legs, he engaged in
strenuous outdoor activities. He loved the environment and became an ardent
conservationist.
Valedictorian of his Yakima High School class
(1916), Douglas received a partial scholarship to attend Whitman College in
Walla Walla, Washington. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa (1920), he returned to
Yakima to teach high school (1920-21). Tired of teaching, he decided to study
law. On receiving his law degree from Columbia University (1925), he joined the
Wall Street firm of Cravath, deGersdorff, Swaine and Wood and practiced
corporate law (1925-1926).
After a brief stint teaching at Columbia, Douglas
joined the Yale Law School faculty (1928-1934); he became an expert in
bankruptcy law. Douglas left Yale (1934) to join the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC); there he met and became a friend and adviser to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Douglas was appointed SEC Commissioner (1936) and
replaced Joseph P. Kennedy as SEC Chairman (1937-1939).
Following US Supreme Court Justice Louis D.
Brandeis' retirement, Roosevelt nominated Douglas as his replacement. Confirmed
by the Senate, Douglas was sworn into office April 17, 1939. On three occasions
(1940, 1944 and 1948), Douglas was considered a vice-presidential nominee. In
1952, he chose the bench over a run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Associate Justice Douglas became one of the most
controversial public figures in US history. Usually dissenting, his opinions
were brilliantly crafted. Expected to be pro-business on the bench, his tenure
was characterized by a fierce commitment to individual rights and a powerful
distrust of government power. His outspoken advocacy for liberal causes and
underdogs, including his opposition to the Vietnam War and his unconventional
lifestyle -- he married four times and divorced three, made him a target of
political conservatives; they often demanded his impeachment.
An ardent conservationist, Douglas led several
protests to preserve wilderness areas. The William O. Douglas Wilderness in
Washington State was named in his honor and for his role in advancing
wilderness legislation and championing environmental issues.
On December 31, 1974, he suffered a stroke.
Douglas retired November 12, 1975 after serving 36 years, 6 months and 25 days
on the Court, the longest on record. He died January 19, 1980 at Walter Reed
Hospital in Maryland. (Sources: www.brainyquote.com,
and www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/79)
Disgruntled
wants to know: Whenever politicians begin a statement with
"since 9-11," we can expect to hear a justification for limitations
on individual rights and freedoms and/or brutal acts committed by our nation in
the name of homeland security. One of the most outrageous changes since the
installation of George W. Bush and 9-11, besides the supine corporate press,
which knew no bounds in hounding former President Bill Clinton and now acts as
propaganda agents for the current regime, is the "free speech zone."
Contrary to the admonition of Associate Justice Douglas, e.g., "Free
speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter,"
citizens daring to protest against the actions of the current White House
occupant are treated like mad cows- quarantined in holding pens. What makes
this example of freedom and democracy so special that the US feels compelled to
export it?
Disgruntled feels: Bullied! Schoolyard bullies rarely think the
rules that restrict bad behavior on the part of the general society apply to
them. For example, the US is big on criticizing other countries for their human
rights abuses, while it breaks international laws and its own prohibitions
against torture. Like sponges, our children soak up lessons the bully's
successes teach. When our national leaders succeed in bullying other countries
to get whatever it is they want, the successful lesson is etched in our
children's minds to be used at some later time against their peers and other
weaklings. It is no secret that bullying is on the rise across the US. The
blame for this rise in violent behavior rightly rests on the doorsteps of the
Bully-in-Chief.
Disgruntled says: As the Republican presidential nominee in
2000, George W. Bush clearly declared he had a "strict construction"
litmus test for nominating judges. Like all good liars, he has since looked
squarely into camera lens and, without blinking, told the US public he has no
such test. It is no secret that Bush prefers justices like Antonin Scalia and
William Rehnquist, the "strict construction" conservatives on the US
Supreme Court. Liberals fear, if Bush stacks the courts, his right-wing judges
will "turn the clock back 70 years on efforts to protect working people,
public health, the environment, civil rights, civil liberties and
privacy." Given Bush's success to date, this could happen. Erroneously,
folks in the red states that voted for Bush think the roll back will only
adversely affect blacks, other non-whites and loose women.
Venue for an Artist
Jones v. Mayer (1968)
By William O. Douglas
Enabling a Negro to buy and sell real and
personal property is a removal of one of many badges of slavery...
The true curse of slavery is not what it did to
the black man, but what it has done to the white man. For the existence of the
institution produced the notion that the white man was a superior character,
intelligence, and morality. The blacks were little more than livestock- to be
fed and fattened for the economic benefits they could bestow through their
labors, and to be subjected to authority, often with cruelty, to make clear who
was master and who slave.
Some badges of slavery remain today. While the
institution has been outlawed, it has remained in the minds and hearts of many
white men. Cases which have come to this Court depict a spectacle of slavery
unwilling to die. We have seen contrivances by States designed to thwart Negro
voting, e.g., Lane v. Wilson. Negroes have been excluded over and
again from juries solely on account of their race, e.g., Strauder v. West
Virginia. They have been made to attend segregated and inferior schools,
e.g, Brown v. Board of Education, or been denied entrance to colleges
or graduate schools because of their color, e.g., Pennsylvania v. Board of
Trusts; Sweatt v. Painter. Negroes have been prosecuted from
marrying whites, e.g., Loving v. Virginia. They have been forced to
live in segregated residential districts, Buchanan v. Warley, and
residents of white neighborhoods have denied them entrance, e.g., Shelley
v. Kraemer. Negroes have been forced to use segregated facilities in going
about their daily lives, being excluded from railway coaches, Plessy v.
Ferguson; public parks, New Orleans v. Detiege; restaurants, Lombard
v. Louisiana; public beaches, Mayor of Baltimore v. Dawson; municipal
golf courses, Holmes v. City of Atlanta; amusement parks, Griffin
v. Maryland; busses, Gayle V. Browder; public libraries, Brown
V. Louisiana. A state court judge in Alabama convicted a Negro woman of
contempt of court because she refused to answer him when he addressed her as
"Mary" although she had made the simple request to be called
"Miss Hamilton," Hamilton v. Alabama.
That brief sampling of discriminatory practices,
many of which continue today, stands almost as an annotation to what Frederick
Douglass (1817-1895) wrote a century earlier: "...Without crime or
offense against law or gospel, the colored man is the Jean Valjean of American
society. He has escaped from the galleys, and hence all presumptions are
against him. The workshop denies him work, and the inn denies him shelter; the
ballot-box a fair vote, and the jury-box a fair trial. He has ceased to be the
slave of an individual, but has in some sense become the slave of society. He
may not now be bought and sold like a beast in the market, but he is the
trammeled victim of a prejudice, well calculated to repress his manly ambition,
paralyze his energies, and make him a dejected and spiritless man, if not a
sullen enemy to society, fit to prey upon life and property and to make trouble
generally."
Today the black man is protected by a host of
civil rights laws. But the forces of discrimination are still strong.
About Me: In Jones
v. Mayer (1968), Joseph Lee Jones, a black man, alleged the defendant
refused to sell him a home because he was black. The case tested the
constitutionality of 42 U.S.C. 1982, which provides that all citizens
"shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by
white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real
and personal property." The lower courts held that 1982 did not apply to
private refusals to sell. The Supreme Court held it "bars all racial
discrimination, private as well as public, in the sale or rental of property,
and that the statute, thus construed, is a valid exercise of the power of
Congress to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment."
Housing Discrimination
The Federal Fair Housing Act (1968) and Fair
Housing Amendments Act (42 U.S. Code §§ 3601-3619, 3631) prohibit housing
discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ethnic background or national
origin, sex, age, the fact that the prospective tenant has children (except in
certain designated senior housing), or a mental or physical disability. Despite
the passage of this legislation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) estimates that each year 2.5 million people are victims of
housing discrimination.
HUD's most recent study, "Discrimination in
Metropolitan Housing Markets: National Results from Phase I of HDS2000,"
found the incidence of discrimination for African Americans and Hispanics has
declined since 1989. Despite this decline, housing discrimination remains a
pervasive problem for African-American and Hispanic homebuyers and renters.
The report, which can be found at www.huduser.org, identified discriminatory trends in
homebuyers being steered to geographic areas based on neighborhood racial
composition, difficulties in obtaining financing information and racial
disparities in sub-prime lending. In every area examined, HUD found that
non-Hispanic whites received preferential treatment.
Research conducted by the Sociology department of
Pennsylvania State University and published in Urban Affairs Review (March
2001) validates the HUD report. Disturbingly, the Penn study found that speech
patterns trigger housing discrimination. Using three distinct speech patterns,
two middle class -- white middle-class English and black accented English --
and the lower-class dialect known as Black English Vernacular, researchers made
474 phone calls to 79 agents advertising rental property in the Philadelphia
area.
Researchers discovered that women and blacks,
particularly black women, were significantly less likely to be offered an
opportunity to inspect a rental unit than white men, when they left a voice
mail or message on the answering machine. This and similar studies show how
discrimination is fairly widespread and routine. They also show how technology
-- in this case, voice mail and answering machines -- makes it easier to
discriminate by simply not returning a call. See www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2001/040501/research.html
for more about this study and its conclusions.
Fight Housing
Discrimination
Less than 1% of the HUD estimated
2.5 million people annually that experience housing discrimination reports the
incident. Most housing discrimination victims may simply be unaware that their
rights have been violated and/or they do not know their legal options. As the
Penn State study showed, housing discrimination can be as subtle as failing to
return a telephone call in response to a message left at an agent's office inquiring
about a rental advertisement.
The first step in protecting your rights is to know what those rights are. The
Federal Fair Housing Act gives you the right to live wherever you choose;
anyone that erects barriers to that right violates this act and can be sued.
Not only does this legislation and subsequent amendments prohibit acts that
prevent individuals from renting or owning property in certain neighborhoods,
it bars discrimination in mortgage lending, property appraisals, homeowner's
insurance and more.
To learn more about your rights and ways to
recognize the subtler, yet pervasive, forms of housing discrimination, visit www.fairhousinglaw.org. This site is a useful
resource, which provides housing discrimination news and links to other sites,
including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the
federal agency charged with enforcing fair housing legislation. At www.hud.gov, you will find answers to frequently asked
questions, gain more insight into your housing rights and learn to recognize
when those rights have been violated. You can file a housing discrimination
complaint and become familiar with the steps in this legal process, as well as
obtain information about other options available to you in seeking redress under
the fair housing laws. Do not be an unwitting victim! Know your rights!
Editor's Notes
On our most recent faux pas, the "Million
Dollar Baby" star is Hillary Swank, not Valerie as we erroneously wrote in
The DISH Vol. 8 No 9.
We recently resumed our local fax service and would like to thank everyone that helped to make that happen. To all our readers that generously provide constructive feedback, thank you! Keep reading! Your comments and suggestions are appreciated! Dot
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